Tom DeLay may have cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives. Maybe not this year -- but after this year's elections.

Tom DeLay had to leave his leadership role and has since left Congress over his role in a Congressional redistricting scandal.

The US Supreme Court ruled that Texas' redistricting is pretty much OK. There are problems with one district but the Court ruled states can redistrict anytime they want -- not just after a Census every 10 years.

The problem for Republicans is that Democrats are poised to win control of some pretty populus states this fall -- and that could mean more Democratic seats in Congress.

Kiplinger Forecasts reports:

"We expect Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York to wind up with Democrats in control of both the governor's mansion and the state legislature after the November elections. So redistricting in those states might shift enough seats to the Democratic column to give that party a majority."

The Democrats may no longer have Tom DeLay to kick around -- but you can bet some Republican strategists are kicking around some ideas for kicking his butt.

The redistricting wasn't the scandal. It was funding the redistricting that brought Tom DeLay down. The Washington Post called the court decision a "hollow victory" for Mr DeLay -- since it won't affect his upcoming criminal trial.

DeLay's Potential Democratic Legacy

In the end, it was for himself --not his party that Mr DeLay got Texas redistricted. The move meant more Republicans in the House and extended the survival of a GOP majority. But utlimately, the additional Texas Republicans were beholden to DeLay -- giving him muscle within the "inside baseball" of Capitol Hill power struggles.

The ticking timebomb of nationwide redistricting frenzies that could shift control to the Democrats was always there. Mr DeLay jumped the Democrats and expected to get crowned. Too bad, he was playing chess instead of checkers. (Kiplinger Forecasts/HT: PoliticalWire.com)

The Department of Veterans Affairs reportedly gave permission for an analyst to work on data at home. That data was on a laptop stolen from his house -- jeapordizing personal information of around 26 million veterans and two million active service members.

The VA wants to fire the analyst -- and says he wasn't supposed to take the data home.

The analyst is fighting back, saying he had approval from higher-ups who want to scapegoat him. And the Associated Press has obtained VA documents backing him up.

That should make things really pleasant for VA Secretary Jim Nicholson when he testifies on Capitol Hill today. (AP)

Route 66 may have been the "Mother Road," but the Interstate Highway System has made us all brothers and sisters.

It created a cultural revolution in America and left a mark on our civilization as clear and deep as the unifying power of Rome's aqueducts, forums and arenas.

Celebrating today's 50th anniversary of the Interstate Highway System -- a caravan has been traveling the Interstates to "Zero Milestone" (right) outside the White House. The Washington Post describes their journey:

"They have been celebrating a system that includes 47,000 miles of highway with 55,500 bridges, 104 tunnels, 14,750 interchanges and zero traffic lights."

President Dwight Eisenhower signed the law authorizing the system on June 29, 1956. As a young Army officer, he'd led a military convoy across the US -- and was shocked to find it took weeks to drive from coast to coast. (WashPost)

The Washington Post reports a single person could swing an election. As long as he's a hacker.

A team of cybersecurity experts tested electronic voting machines in a mock election -- and were able to change the outcome. In it -- candidate Tom Jefferson actually led by 80,000 votes -- but a hacker was able to reprogram voting machines so that the win went to his opponent -- Johnny Adams.

Easiest way to prevent the fraud? Researchers say an auditable paper trail. None of the major voting machines provide those right now. (WashPost)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) grabbed the opportunity to use $207-million in taxpayer money to make a personal $1.5 million profit on a land deal. (HT: ThinkProgress)

And the Washington Postsays Mr Hastert isn't alone. They've got the skinny on pork projects enriching other members of Congress: Rep Ken Calvert (R-CA) made a huge land profit after a pork project drove up the value of some land he bought. And Rep Gary Miller (R-CA) tucked money into the highway bill to pay for street improvements -- on a real estate development he co-owns.

Bloomberg reports that Rep Alan Mollohan (D-WV) funnelled $179 million tax dollars to companies that contributed to his family run charity. The Robert H Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation took in $225,427 from 21 outfits that benefited from the Congressman's pork barrel spending on them.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Pulitizer Prize winner Ron Suskind's new book The One Percent Doctrine paints a frightening picture of America's anti-terrorist efforts devolving into a series of paranoid wild goose chases after 9/11 -- while real terrorist threats go unchecked or un-noticed.

In short, it tells how the administration built it's anti-terrorist policies on the ravings of a disturbed mental patient -- taken off his medication and subjected to water torture.

Abu Zubaydah -- the hot shot al Qaeda "Number 2" (the first of the #2s we captured) turned out to be the travel agent for al Qaeda's wives and kept diaries written by each of his three personalities.

Abu Zubaydah -- or, let's call him "al-Sybil" for the split personality thing -- started talking under torture -- making up "targets."

The Washington Post sums up the process of getting useless information:

They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony ofdrowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

The title of the book comes from the administration's theory that if there is a 1% likelihood that a rumor is true -- it should be treated as the truth. That spreads resources thin and commits them to thousands of wild goose chases.

CIA terrorist hunters say they saw their jobs as no longer looking for intel, but looking for arguments to back up the administration's policies.

There are also some good lines -- like the one about Bush brushing off a warning on the Aug 6, 2001 PDB as "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

It also details how the President ignored his top people at Tora Bora who wanted more troops committed.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

It was a US ordnance team that recovered the bodies of Pfc Thomas Tucker of Madras, OR and Pfc Kristian Menchaca of Houston, TX. Their mutiliated bodies had been booby-trapped with IEDs. US forces spotted the bodies at dusk, but had to wait until dawn to see the traps set for them.

The two young soldiers were kidnapped after a firefight over the weekend. No US military spokesman will go into detail as to what condition their bodies were in, other than saying they'd been tortured and beheaded. Drawing the line at that gives you an idea of what they didn't want to talk about. The military is relying on DNA to identify the remains.

Amnesty for Insurgents

This brutality comes just one week after five US Senators spoke in support of the idea of amnesty for insurgents, to bring peace and stability to Iraq.

The idea was floated by an Iraqi government aide -- later fired for even suggesting it. But before that happened, the "Gang of Five" spoke in favor of forgiveness:

“If they bore arms against our people, what's the difference between those people that bore arms against the Union in the War between the States? What’s the difference between the Germans and Japanese and all the people we’ve forgiven?” -- Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK)

"Forgiveness has been a major factor in what has been a political miracle in Africa." -- Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), comparing the idea of forgiving insurgents and terrorists to the Nobel Peace Prize winning efforts of Nelson Mandela

“Is it not true today that we have Iraqis who are fighting the war against the insurgents, who at one time fought against American troops and other coalition troops as they were marching to Baghdad, who have now come over to our side and are doing one heck of a job of fighting along, side by side, with Americans and coalition forces, attacking and killing insurgents on a daily basis?" -- Sen Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)

“…Might it not just be as useful an exercise to be trying to pass a resolution commending the Iraqi government for the position that they’ve taken today with regard to this discussion of Amnesty?” Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

John Cornyn (R-TX) joined McConnell in supporting the idea of praising the Iraqi government for the idea of forgiving insurgents and terrorists who've killed American troops.

The idea would have pardoned the people responsible for killing or wounding roughly 20,000 Americans. (WashPost/RawStory)

The much debated domestic wiretapping program completely missed an apparent al Qaeda plot to attack the New York subways with cyanide gas bomb.

Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind details the plan in a new book -- The One Percent Doctrine. TIME magazine has run excerpts from it. His book says intelligence agencies discovered the plot in 2003 -- only after al-Qaida's number two Ayman al-Zawhiri called off the attack.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) wouldn't go into much detail about the plot in an interview with the New York Daily News. He would say he was briefed on the plot and that the suggestion that al Qaeda canceled the plan "was correct."

But the wiretapping program never detected the plot. It instead discovered through a mole inside al Qaeda. And it appears the US didn't know about it until after the plot was canceled.

Nevertheless, Sen Roberts jumped on the opportunity to use the threat to help sell the domestic wiretapping program.

Monday, June 19, 2006

You'da thunk 9/11 would have had Washington cracking down on people who make it easy for illegal immigrants to make money. But Washington's been going pretty easy on companies that hire illegal immigrants.

The Washington Post reports the Immigration and Naturalization Service scaled back work-site enforcement by 95% between 1999 and 2003.Look at how things have changed over the years:

This first chart shows how enforcement has dropped off dramatically in just four years. The numbers for 2003, shown in blue, barely show up in comparison to 1999's numbers.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

The President has spent a lot of time and energy this week urging all of us to "stay the course." He invokes the memory of Ronald Reagan when he brings up that 1984 campaign slogan.

But Mr Reagan had a course in mind. He saw the place he'd bring the ship of state to shore. With the Iraq War, the President has never let us know where we're going.

I like sailing. I love harnessing the wind to take me where I want to go -- regardless of the direction the wind blows. I know how to tack to get to where I want to go. I understand laying out a plan before hand to get where I'm going.

So, as a sailor (small “s”) I’d have to say, “What is the course?”

When you set out on the water, you have an idea where you’re going—unless it’s a party cruise. That's just a float -- with lots of stuff to numb your brain. With Iraq, our brains are numb, but it's no party cruise.

The Horizon We Never Reach

For three years, we’ve had no clear goals in Iraq.

There were no WMDs, so we changed course.

Freedom and democracy are great—but they’re pretty vague. We’ve had three elections in Iraq. If that’s “freedom and democracy” then why are we still there? After three elections, we changed course.

Standing up the Iraqi military is great. There are now more Iraqi security members than there ever were US troops. So why isn’t it mission accomplished”...again?

We changed the course again.

Now Captain W has us sailing around in circles telling us to “stay the course.”

Great.

Just let me know what it takes to bring this boat to shore. I’m sure me, you, the American people, and certainly the troops would be willing to do it for a little shore leave!

Thing is, the only people who ever use it are telemarketers -- calling her.

She says other Governors around the country have told her they have the same problem. It's got them wondering just how secure the line is. She still gets the calls -- even after the DHS put the numbers in the federal "Do Not Call" registery.

Reporters tried calling the Department of Homeland Security for comments, but no one called back. Maybe the lines were busy. Or maybe DHS was listening to a great sales pitch on how they could save on their long distance service! (The News Journal)

Monday, June 12, 2006

President Bush is meeting with his War Cabinet and top military commanders in Iraq this week. It could be an opportunity for the President to draw down troops from Iraq -- taken in light of a new Iraqi government and the death of terrorist leader al Zarqawi.

But the President is downplaying that possibility almost as much as he's downplayed the death of Zarqawi.

Going into the fourth year of the Iraq War, the President sees a break to break open a strategy for winning it. Paul Bremer and Newt Gingrich talk about the need for the President to outline a strategy for finishing the Iraq War.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Absolutely nothing political about this video -- just some fun for a summer Friday. Two guys, 200 liters of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos. The spurting fountains will have you sneezing Diet Coke out your nose.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

There Once was a Man from Iraq -- a Presidential limerick on terrorism and al Zarqawi as he battles back from record low poll numbers. Officially, the White House sees military and diplomatic opportunities. Behind the scenes, they can see political opportunities.

The President's statement on the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The most wanted terrorist in Iraq was killed in an air raid by F-16s in a house north of Baghdad. The picture here was taken after al-Zarqawi's death. (The White House)

Researchers analyzed more than 25,000 travel disclosure documents into millions of dollars worth of trips.

The Center will stream the results of the investigation live on www.publicintegrity.org. The Center has organized these records by congressional office, trip destination, trip cost and trip sponsor. (Al's Morning Meeting)

The Raw Story reports the Department of Homeland Security has placed Washington, DC in the bottom 25% of states and territories likely to see a terrorist attack.

This despite two of the 9/11 planes targeted the nation's capital.

The placement means the DHS considers Washington a low-risk target. Al Qaeda is known for attacking targets it did not destroy in previous attacks. The 1993 World Trade Center attack followed by the 9/11 attacks being the most famous example. (TRS)

The Department of Homeland Security -- fresh off it's handling of Hurricane Katrina -- has decided New York City and Washington, DC don't need anti-terrorism money as much as say Jacksonville and Sacramento.

DHS determined that New York City has "zero" national monuments or icons. Forget about the Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, and Statue of Liberty.

"The Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York," Rep. Peter King (R-NY) - quoted in the Washington Post

Anti-terrorism money was cut from $207-million to $124-million. DC's funding was slashed from $77-million to $46-million.

Sen Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rep Peter King (R-NY) fired off some postcards to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff reminding him of some of the icons he seemed to have missed (right).

About Me

Terry "Tex" Turner spent 7 years covering Washington for 100 client television stations across the United States.
Since then, he has been a webcasting & social media pioneer with a record of expanding audiences, market share, and audience loyalty.